This means you’ll be able to watch The Wire, The Sopranos and Eastbound and Down, as well many of HBO’s other critically acclaimed original content, all through Amazon Instant Video. Unfortunately for Canadians, Amazon has no plans to bring Amazon Instant Video to its Canadian subscribers. Here’s how you can gain access from the great white north.

Make a U.S. Amazon account

The first step to this simple process is creating a U.S. Amazon Account. This means you need to go to Amazon.com and sign up (don’t go to Amazon.ca). Next, activate your Amazon Prime 30-day trial.

Along with access to Amazon Instant Video, Prime gives you preferred shipping options, which is an added bonus if you’re a frequent Amazon user. After the 30-day trial period is over Instant Video costs $99 for the entire year and you’re automatically billed. So if you decide Prime isn’t for you, make sure you cancel it before the trial period is over.

Link your Canadian credit card

Fill this in with the appropriate fake American address and you’ll be good to go. Screenshot

Next up is linking your Canadian credit card to your U.S. Amazon account. This is basically as simple as it sounds. Just add your credit card information to your U.S. Amazon account by clicking “Your Account” and then “Edit Payment Method” in the left corner of the screen.

This is where things can get tricky. Sometimes using your Canadian credit card works fine for accessing Instant Video and in other situations it doesn’t. There doesn’t seem to be a reason behind whether it works or not but if you run into the dreaded “this content cannot be played in your region” error, it’s time to make a fake U.S. address out of your real Canadian address, and link that to your Instant Video account.

To do this, follow the steps outlined in my “How to Get Hulu Plus in Canada” story and create a U.S. zipcode based off your actual Canadian address. You’ll likely be okay with using just your Canadian billing address, so you can likely avoid this process altogether.

Use a VPN or geo-blocking service so Amazon thinks you’re in the U.S.

Unblock-Us has been my geo-blocking service for a few years now.

Now it’s time to sign up for a VPN or geo-blocking service so Amazon thinks you’re actually located in the U.S., by changing your home network or individual device’s DNS settings.

I subscribe to Unblock-Us because I like how convenient the service is and the fact that it doesn’t slow down my internet speed on whatever device I have it running on. Simply go to Unblock-us.com and following their step-by-step instructions to change the DNS settings on your device. The process usually involves downloading a small application and then logging into your Unblock-Us’ account.

There are various IP-changing options out there with varied pricing models and if you’re tech savvy enough, there are even relatively simple free options to take advantage of as well.